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Greece’s leading contemporary director has had a request to shoot footage for his new film at the Acropolis in Athens denied by his country’s culture ministry.
Yorgos Lanthimos had filed a request to film scenes for sci-fi comedy Bugonia at the fifth-century BC site in April. But in a statement on Thursday, the culture ministry said permission had been refused because “the proposed scenes are incompatible with the symbolism … and the values the Acropolis represents”.
Bugonia is Lanthimos’s latest collaboration with Emma Stone, who won the best actress Oscar for her role in his 2023 comedy Poor Things. In their new film, whose scheduled November release date suggests a major awards push, Stone stars as the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company kidnapped by a conspiracist bee-keeper, played by her Kinds of Kindness co-star Jesse Plemons.
The scenes in question depicted 70 dead bodies placed between two of the Greek citadel’s key sites: the Propylaea, its complex of Doric entrance buildings, and the Parthenon, the temple dedicated to the goddess Athena.
Lanthimos’s request appears to have initially been welcomed by the ministry of culture, who agreed to waive the standard filming fee for the Acropolis – around €1,984 (£1,700) per day – in recognition of the director’s international standing.
However, this offer was subject to the approval of the Central Archaeological Council, which oversees the Acropolis. They rejected Lanthimos’s proposal, citing symbolic inappropriateness and insufficient reverence, and suggested nearby alternatives where he could film.
The ministry of culture is said to have delayed its final ruling until producers from the film indicated whether they would pursue another location. On Wednesday, culture minister Lina Mendoni received a letter from Lanthimos’s team, reiterating their previously rejected request, but reportedly not providing sufficient grounds for her to ask the Central Archeological Council to reconsider.
Despite being widely regarded as one of the planet’s most important cultural artefacts, the Acropolis in Athens has often been used as a filming location. It featured extensively in Sophia Loren’s 1957 breakthrough, Boy on a Dolphin, as well as in more recent films such as Patricia Highsmith adaptation The Two Faces of January (2014) and Before Midnight (2013).
Comparable sites, such as Stonehenge or the Vatican, are usually rebuilt as replicas.
Born in Athens, Lanthimos, 51, was among the creative team behind the TV visuals for the 2004 Olympics held in the city. He made his breakthrough film with 2009’s Dogtooth, which won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes and was nominated for the best international Oscar.
Alps (2011), The Lobster (2015) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) cemented his reputation for challenging absurdist comedies, before he found mainstream acclaim with Queen Anne comedy-drama The Favourite (2018), which was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning best actress for Olivia Colman.
Lanthimos’s first photography monograph, titled Dear God, the Parthenon Is Still Broken, featured photos shot behind the scenes on Poor Things. A second book, I Shall Sing These Songs Beautifully, collected shots from the production of Kinds of Kindness.
An exhibition of some of these photographs – Lanthimos’s first bricks-and-mortar show – has just opened at a gallery in Los Angeles.
